


Home Improvement

by facetofcathy



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: 10000-15000 words, Canada, Future Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-03-18
Updated: 2009-03-18
Packaged: 2017-10-02 06:39:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/facetofcathy/pseuds/facetofcathy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>Jared was a grown-up; he didn't need Jensen to look after him. Not his job. Not his house. Not his damn dogs.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	Home Improvement

**Author's Note:**

> RPF, where the F stands for Fiction.
> 
> Non-AU futurefic.

He'd cleaned up the broken shards of plastic and glass right away, done it while he was still half drunk, and he had the cut across his palm to prove it. The rest of it he left—wasn't his problem, wasn't his house. He slept in until the dogs, the only reason he'd cleaned up the mess, insisted he get up. He stumbled out of bed, opened the sliding door to the back yard and left it open. Not his house. He stumbled back to bed.

The cold got him up the next time. The weather had changed from the almost sultry warmth of the previous day, and the wind was blowing in the open door and whistling down and around and into his ground-floor room. He rolled over and fumbled for the television remote. The weather channel said it was 14 degrees and sunny, and he didn't need to do the math anymore; he knew that was cold, the kind of cold that would have the locals out in shirt-sleeves and big smiles. He wasn't a local.

He didn't see the dogs in the yard, so he assumed they'd come in, probably found someplace warm upstairs, so he closed the door, and went to stand under the hot spray of his shower until he wasn't shaking from the chill anymore. The cut on his hand stung when he got shampoo in it. There were petitioners waiting outside his bathroom door. They were both sitting up tall and earnest, tails curves around on the floor, expressions sincere and full of love. He grumbled his way into some clothes, shoved his glasses on and climbed the stairs.

The food bowls were empty, the water dish had nothing but a splash in it, and he was going to kill Jared when the bastard rolled out of bed and faced him. Kibble, water, coffee pot, and he realized he was making an unwarranted assumption. He'd never actually heard Jared come back, and he'd been too drunk to be driving when he had driven off, but Jensen hadn't tried to stop him. Guys who were throwing large pieces of furniture at the walls could do whatever the hell they wanted. Jared was a grown-up; he didn't need Jensen to look after him. Not his job. Not his house. Not his damn dogs.

He looked in the garage first, rather than Jared's bedroom. No car. He climbed back up to the kitchen and poured the coffee. It wasn't hot enough; Jared had turned the temperature down on the damn thing again. Asshole. He adjusted the dial and thought about food. He grabbed a couple of Advil instead.

He climbed another flight of stairs and banged on Jared's closed door. No answer. He rattled the knob, unsurprised to find it locked. Jared always locked it when they had people over, when he had people over. Not Jensen's house. The locked door tended to support the theory that Jared hadn't come home, and he was a big boy—it was fine. If there was another key to the bedroom door, Jensen didn't know where it was, so if Jared had come home—in a taxi, or by some other means—locked the door behind him and passed out, well...

Jensen left it for an hour while he found something resembling food, drank all the water he could handle, let the dogs out again, and avoided the living room. He dialed Jared's number and got the out of service-area message, so the phone, and presumably Jared, were not on the other side of the locked door.

Harley stick handled a chunk of drywall into the kitchen, barking happily, only to be distracted by the food bowl. Jensen cursed his way to the laundry room and came back with a broom and a cardboard box, and he swept up the broken pieces of gypsum and paper and shards of wood. One of the wall studs had split under the impact of the chair.

He went back to bed for a couple of hours.

He heard something, some dog noise, and he rolled over and stared at the ceiling. He was almost directly under the living room. He grumbled back upstairs, not bothering with clothes. If Jared was back, he could put up with the sight of Jensen in nothing but an old pair of cut-off flannel pants. Sadie was stretched up, gleefully scratching her claws on the exposed pine studs. There was a little more gypsum dust on the floor. Not his damn, fucking house. He went to retrieve the broom and to find something to cover the hole.

The next morning the dogs made enough of a racket to get him out of bed when it was barely light out. He flicked on the weather channel while he looked for some clothes on his floor. It was currently 16 degrees out and sunrise had been at 6:14 am. He let the dogs out and kicked around in the pile of shoes in the front hall looking for his heavy boots, the ones with the steel toes. He pulled them on without socks and stomped up two flights of stairs and kicked Jared's door in. It was harder than it looked on TV. He had another mess to clean up, but at least he knew Jared wasn't dead in his own bed, rock-star style.

Normal people would have a list of friends and family to call. Jensen called Kripke and left a message with his assistant. He wasted some time, fiddling with his phone, but eventually he called Chad. Chad told him a lot of things he already knew—Jared was a big boy, it hadn't even been two days, he'd been under a lot of pressure lately, he'd turn his fucking phone back on and call, it wasn't like him.

Jensen found the phone number for the dog sitter and booked them for a week. Kripke called him back just as he was heading out the door to cab it to the airport, and Jensen got to tell him that it looked like Jared wouldn't be joining them in L.A. for the series finale publicity grind, and oh, by the way, would you mind quietly finding out if the car is in the police impound or if Jared's in some ICU somewhere?

A serious-looking intern met him at LAX and whisked him off to a meeting at the network. Jared was nowhere, and Jensen was on the hook for all of the publicity interviews with the added bonus of having to plausibly explain Jared's absence. He had to stick a cigarette in his mouth and flick his lighter with intent to get the green light to go outside for a smoke, just to get the hell away from the endless, pointless bickering about who was taking the blame for the whole mess.

Once he was outside, he pulled out his phone and tabbed through the messages. They were a road map of people the network had called looking for Jared, and now all roads pointed to him, apparently. Christ, Sandy's name was there. Jensen listened to all of them, smoked two more cigarettes, and called Jared's mother. She was upset, clearly, but not worried. Jensen exhaled smoke and exasperation in equal measure and said, "You know where he is, don't you?"

She lied like a trooper. Jensen headed back inside more angry and a lot less worried.

~~~~~

Jared being unavailable for the publicity push that coincided with the airing of the series two-hour finale rated a few lines in the press and unmeasurable quantities of internet speculation. Jensen's agent handled a couple of calls, issued the prepared statement, and interest faded. Jensen flew back to Vancouver, ordered some groceries, kept the dog sitter on for morning walking duties and thought about fixing the door to Jared's room. He called his dad.

He had a list and his glasses on, and he resolutely didn't think about Clark Kent jokes told in a too-loud voice, and he found a Home Depot. He fixed a smile on his face and started asking questions of people wearing orange aprons until he was passed off to a guy about sixty who looked at his list, looked up and said, "Somebody kicked in a door. Not as easy as it looks on TV."

Jensen grinned at him and said, "Steel toes."

"That'd do it."

"So," Jensen said once he had a shopping cart full of some assorted pieces of wood, some glue and a new doorknob, "assume I don't have any tools at all."

The woman in the tool department gave him a long blank look, and then very successfully pretended she didn't recognize him. She questioned him ruthlessly about his tool needs—he felt like he was on _Inside the Actors Studio_—before she hooked him up with a cordless drill, a case of bits, some ordinary screwdrivers, a handsaw and a hammer.

"How hard is it to fix holes in drywall?" he said when his cart was full.

"Depends how big."

"Size of an armchair."

"Some party," she said flatly. "Guys in building supplies can help you out. There's books up by the cash register will show you how. 'Course, the phone book works too."

"Yeah," he said, and wheeled up to the checkout.

He fixed the door, or well, mostly fixed it. The replaced trim needed painting, but he'd managed to pry off the old stuff with a screwdriver and the hammer and glue back the broken bits of the door. The hardest part was figuring out how to install the doorknob, since the instructions were in six-point type and apparently translated from the original Bulgarian via three other languages.

He toasted himself with a beer while he sat on the sofa and eyed the hole that was covered over with a taped up garbage bag. It wasn't going to keep out inquisitive muzzles and claws for long. His agent had asked him when he was moving back to L.A. the last time they'd talked. He picked up the book he'd bought on drywall and started reading.

~~~~~

Jensen had been expected someone from the network to show up. He wasn't answering his phone too often, and he'd been finding a lot of the messages on his voice mail easy to ignore. He didn't owe them anything anymore, and they didn't own him. He wasn't expecting Kripke to be the guy to knock on his, Jared's, door.

The chair had been as trashed as the wall, so he'd gotten rid of it, and he hadn't replaced the TV yet, so the living room looked a little bare. Eric sat in the remaining chair, sipping the beer Jensen'd offered. He'd stood and looked at the wreck of the wall for a long time, hadn't asked any questions, and Jensen figured he'd had plenty of opportunity to talk to witnesses. Lots of the crew had been there that night, some of the cast.

"How'd you keep it from going public?" Jensen asked.

Eric looked up and frowned. "You need a yet on the end of that," he said sourly. "People respect Jared, like him. Eventually, though..."

"Someone will tell someone and then money comes into it," Jensen said.

"Question is, does anybody who'll talk know where he is?"

"I don't, if that's what you're asking," Jensen said.

"I wasn't. I came here to see what you're going to do. I'm kind of surprised you're still here."

"Had some things to do."

"And now?"

Jensen looked up and smiled. He didn't owe Kripke anything much either, but Kripke wasn't the network, and maybe Jensen could spare him a truthful answer or two. "I'm going to learn how to fix drywall."

"_Does_ anyone know where he is?"

It was only his best guess that Jared's family knew the whole story. "No one's told me, if they do," he said.

Eric nodded. "I know this guy, he's making a movie—small budget, but good stuff. I could give him a call."

"Yeah," Jensen said, sounding not very interested, because he wasn't.

"In Vancouver."

"Oh," Jensen said and smiled, "in that case, sure."

~~~~~

For two weeks, Jensen called Jared's cell once a day while the dog sitter had the dogs out and the house was empty. After 14 repetitions of the out of service-area message, he stopped, and the next morning, he called his agent instead. When Jensen told him he was staying in Vancouver and had a line on a movie part, his agent wanted to know why he was making such crazy decisions. The words career suicide were spoken, and Jensen's temper got the better of him, and he said some things he wasn't proud of but couldn't bring himself to regret. The day after that, he called some Canadian actors he'd met over the years and asked about agents in Vancouver. After the thrid reccommendation, he called Kevin Fong and made an appointment for the next day.

He set up a spot in the living room for his laptop, cued up the video he'd found online that showed him how to apply drywall compound, and he got to work. Three beers later, his hair was white with gypsum dust and the hole was gone. He'd find out in a few days how good a job he'd done, after the second coat of compound was put on and dry and sanded.

The guy at Home Depot had suggested he look into a shop vac, and Jensen had waved him off. He was only going to do this once. He really didn't want Jared's cleaners to fire his ass though, so he shook the dust out of his hair and got in the car.

The book said you had to prime new drywall, so one afternoon he stopped at the local hardware store on the way to get some more beer. He met Marion, who ran the paint department with an iron fist, and was even better at cluing up dumb actors about home improvement than the folks in the orange aprons had been—her advice about tape and drop sheets saved him a carpet cleaning bill. He left his patch-job primer-white for two weeks while Kevin sent him to a few meetings for guest spots on various shows, just to get his presence known around town.

He kept running his hand over the patch job, it was smooth, not perfect—there were some gentle undulations he couldn't sand down—but it felt nice under his hand.

Eric's friend called Kevin about the movie, and he also got a part as the guest villain on a cop show for their season finale. He celebrated by ordering a new TV and sound system for the living room.

Marion wouldn't let him buy paint for the living room until he'd looked at the little square paint chips at home. When he came back and showed her the colour he wanted, the sort of dusty red terracotta that made him think of Mexican roof tiles, she shook her head sadly and said, "You don't like to make things easy for yourself, do you?"

When he told her how big the room was—he had to guess because he'd never had cause to measure the wall height, he just knew Jared could only just touch the ceiling with the tips of his fingers—she told him she knew a good painter he could call. He went back the next week and showed her pictures of his finished job, and she beamed at him with pride. She didn't even laugh when he explained that the trim needed a new coat of white paint now.

He bought a second sofa and a new coffee table. He mounted the new TV on the wall himself. He put his guitar on its stand in one corner of the room, and he smiled and charmed the right person and came home from his guest spot on the cop show with the large piece of abstract art that had hung in his character's apartment. It was big enough to cover the not quite smooth patch-job on the wall.

He got a call from his agent telling him the movie was green-lit for mid-June and that he was, under no circumstances, allowed to cut his hair.

~~~~~

"Move in," Jared had said.

"We'll kill each other."

"Nah, take the downstairs room, hell, all the rooms down there. I'm not using them. We won't even have to see each other when we're here if we don't want to."

So Jensen had said yes. He'd bought a cheap bedroom set off the internet, set up the room next door as an office and storeroom for his random collection of crap, and they'd got along just fine. He'd gotten used to living with dogs, and they had spent the occasional weekend hanging out together, and it had been fine. He'd only ever expected the show to go to the end of the fourth season, so when they had gotten another year, he'd asked Jared if he wanted his house back, and Jared had laughed and told him to stop being an idiot.

~~~~~

The dog sitter took a vacation in the middle of May, and Jensen started getting up and taking the dogs out every morning at six. He figured he needed to remember how to get his ass out of bed in the morning anyway. He wasn't prepared for the number of dogs out towing people behind them, people who all wanted to know when Jared was coming back. He made up three separate, barely plausible stories and parceled them out to the askers. If one of them showed up as an internet rumour—well, no one ever said he was Machiavelli—he didn't know what he'd do.

When he returned home from dog duty one morning, he rummaged around for his tape measure and went upstairs. Jared's room was locked again—the key hung on a chain inside the front door with a neatly printed label on it—but down the hall, past the master bath, was a guest suite with an only slightly less sybaritic en-suite. It was furnished like a hotel room and had been used a few times when Jared had friends up. Jensen remembered a couple of guys on the Smallville crew had run a moving company in their spare time. He sat on the cream-coloured bedspread and did the seven times table until their names popped into his head. When they said they'd be over that afternoon, he hustled his ass down to his room to empty the dresser.

They told him they were going to drop his old stuff off at Goodwill, and he nodded and smiled and promised to kick their asses if it showed up on eBay. They grinned, made no promises, and shifted everything from the guest room to his old room in less than half an hour.

He headed out to the hardware store and was treated like a fellow addict showing up at the old corner again. "Will you shake your head sadly if I tell you I want to do this room blue?" he asked.

"Depends on how dark you want to go," Marion said.

He bought not quite so cheap furniture off the internet and had to call his mother when the prospect of buying window blinds left him feeling like a guy in over his head. She asked him when he was coming back to L.A., and he could picture her shaking her head sadly when he told her he wasn't.

He called up the manager for his place in L.A. and asked them to have the contents shipped up. He figured whoever they hired to pack up would have seen things worse than his modest porn stash, so he didn't worry about it.

He sent some emails to his friends, letting them know where he was and what he was doing. He was still finding it easy to ignore his voice mail.

~~~~~

The movie shoot was fabulous and horrible and gruelling and over way too soon. Most of it was location shoots with a lot of beach scenes while Vancouver was enjoying the hottest summer in over 30 years. Jensen figured it was payback for all the bitching he'd done about hypothermia, standing in the rain in February and wondering when he'd ever get feeling in his extremities back.

The most exciting thing that happened at the wrap party, held at the producers house in true indie style, was the lighting director and one of the sound techs along with both of their spouses disappearing into a bedroom together for most of the night. Jensen left early, happily shaking hands and slapping backs on the way out the door. He sat on the new sofa in the living room, his living room, with the dogs sprawled at his feet and a bottle of hundred-dollar scotch in his hand, and he stared at the painting. If he got just drunk enough, he would swear the abstract swirls and splashes of colour moved.

~~~~~

September wasn't much cooler, and Jensen was actually wishing for a nice cold drizzle and grey skies. If he heard one more person say it was just like California, he was going to scream. He'd taken to making dire pronouncements about climate change and melting ice caps, and nobody liked a buzz-kill, so they shut up about the glorious sunshine and the temperatures that hovered around 30 degrees when he was around. He had another solid guest spot on a series lined up for the winter, shooting started in December for a six episode arc, and he was not complaining that it was all in-studio filming. He wasn't so eager for winter that he actually wanted to stand out in it for hours on end.

One afternoon, he did a slow pass down the downstairs hallway, running his hand over the walls, noting the occasional dip or high spot or nail pop. The room he'd used as an office cum storeroom was all storeroom now, chock full of the things he'd had shipped up from L.A. The hallway had a few dings and scuffs and looked dingy and grey. He hadn't needed to go to the hardware store in over a month, and he was jonesing for a visit. It was possible he was hooked on paint fumes.

He painted the hallway a colour that looked like summer sunshine, and he actually found it cheerful, even at six am when he took the dogs out.

~~~~~

Kevin Fong called to report that _some asshole_ from the network had called, issuing ultimatums about Jensen's presence at publicity events for the DVD release of the full boxed set of all five seasons of _Supernatural_. Jensen had to admit that he was pretty much obligated, no matter how much he didn't want to do any of it, and he left the details to his agent to handle. By the end of the month, the network guy in charge had been upgraded to _bloody, fucking asshole_, and Jensen made a note to get Kevin something nice for Christmas.

On the first decently crisp, cool day in October, Jensen boarded a plane for L.A. They were doing a reprise of the whole _let's get our stories straight about Jared_ meeting, and he was the guest of honour again. Misha was lucky enough to get in on it this time, and Jensen sat beside him at the too-large conference table. He had on a pair of tinted glasses that washed the laser blue of his eyes down to a muddy hue, and Jensen shook his hand, and then turned his head to stare out at the view of glass and concrete and dirty blue sky.

The network guy, Jameson, seemed to think that if he was obnoxious enough, Jensen would conjure Jared up for him, and his publicity scheduling problems would be solved. "I don't know who this fucking shit thinks he is," Jameson said, stabbing his finger on the table in front of Jensen, "but he better show up for this release or he can kiss goodbye any chances of working in this town again."

Jensen stood up, letting the chair clatter over backwards to the floor, and leaned down, bracing his hands on the table, he pulled out his Dean voice and said, "You need to remember that I don't work in this bloody town anymore, so if you want _me_ to show up for any of this crap, you will shut the fuck up about Jared."

Misha leaned back in his chair and nodded thoughtfully, ghost of a smile on his lips. "Jensen and I can sit on all those uncomfortable studio sofas and tell a few prank stories, tell a few groped by an angel jokes—it'll be fine."

"Fine, just don't fucking tell anyone you still live in Vancouver. People'll think you're nuts," Jameson said, pointing at Jensen.

"Yeah, because L.A.'s full of such great people," Jensen said, and he was in the hallway and had his phone out and was calling the dog sitter before he realized Misha was walking along with him. He let Misha listen to him leave a slightly embarrassing message about not letting the dogs stray onto the lawn of one of the new neighbours who wasn't very fond of holes in his turf.

"I saw you on TV, playing the psycho killer, man, you were good," Misha said when Jensen had stuffed the phone back in his pocket.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"So, you coming up to Vancouver to do the Canadian publicity?" Jensen asked.

"It was pointed out to me that it would be in my best interests," Misha said. "Jeff's coming too."

"Fantastic, you'll have to both come over to the house."

~~~~~

The publicity push started a week before Halloween with a warm-up series of television spots in Vancouver. Jeff and Misha showed up the night before, and Jensen led them into the living room and stood back to wait for their reactions.

"Holy shit," Jeff said and flopped down on the sofa, "you got a good decorator."

Misha nodded to the painting and said, "You didn't sneak that off set under your coat."

They did five television spots and one print interview the next day, all three of them spectacularly hung over, and Jensen was considering a vow of sobriety and deeply regretting that he'd managed to quit smoking—again. Whenever anyone mentioned Jared, Jeff grinned, showing lots of teeth, and changed the subject. Misha, fortified behind even darker glasses, managed to answer more than his fair share of questions with words that even sounded sane.

Jensen had two days before he had to fly down to L.A. and do it all over again. He dropped Jeff and Misha at the airport, went home, and fell asleep on the sofa with the stereo playing and the dogs sharing the other couch.

When he woke up, Jared was sitting in between the two dogs, both hands buried in fur. He looked smaller, and at the same time taller. He was sitting straight, head up, the swirls of colour in the painting behind him framing him, and the room finally seemed right, finally seemed full enough.

Jensen struggled upright, and rubbed a hand over his face trying to get his brain to work again. Jared smiled knowingly at him, and Jensen cursed his stubble and his not-artful bed-head and the taste of sour indulgence in his mouth. Jared was shaved smooth as a baby, hair shining and curving around his face. He was calm; that was the most remarkable thing, the stillness about him. He just sat there silently with the dogs pressed up against him soaking up the vital essence they'd been doing without.

Jensen opened his mouth, with not a clue what words were going to burst out. His lips stuck together unpleasantly, and a spike of pain shot through his temple. Jared dropped his eyes, and Jensen followed his gaze and let out a little sound of pleasure. The Advil was sitting on the coffee table flanked by a bottle of water and another of Gatorade, garishly yellow and almost glowing in the light that filtered in from the kitchen. Jensen popped a couple of pills, downed most of the water in one go, and let Jared sit and silently watch. He had thought, when he'd thought about it in the dark of night while he watched the shadows on his bedroom ceiling and listened to the dogs' sleep noises—he had thought that there would be more yelling when Jared finally turned up.

"Huh," Jensen said and twisted the cap off the other bottle. He closed his eyes, ignored the taste, and chugged the stuff. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and looked Jared over again. He _was_ smaller. The long-sleeved tee shirt he wore clung to his new shape, showing curves and angles that had been hidden under a protective layer of hard bulging flesh before. "I don't know what to say."

Jared ducked his head and watched his own hand burrowing into fur. "You mad?" he asked quietly.

"Surprisingly, no. Guess I got over it."

Jared nodded. "The place is beautiful, Jensen," he said shyly. "If the dogs hadn't come running, I'd have thought I was in the wrong house."

Jensen was still too hung over to deal with the worry that maybe now he was the one in the wrong place. "I need–" He waved a hand in the direction of the bathroom and made a break for it.

The mirror confirmed that he looked as bad as he felt, face pale under the remnants of his summer tan, dark circles under his eyes. His hair was a lost cause, and the stubble had grown past pleasantly scruffy and into bum territory sometime before he'd crashed. Jared was sitting out there looking happy and smooth-cheeked and damn near like he had all those years ago when they'd first met and had been giddy with their unexpected kinship.

The sofas were empty when he came back out. He followed the sounds of happy dog to the kitchen and found Jared running his fingertips over the glass tile back splash. The tiles were slick and smooth, but their surfaces undulated like tiny waves and he had caught himself running his fingers over this bit of his handy work a time or two. Jared turned and grinned at him, and Jensen nearly called out, "Dimples," but he'd stopped doing that a couple of years ago, when Jared had stopped reacting with mock irritation and moved on to the genuine article.

"Hungry?" Jared said.

Jensen thought about the state of his gut and opted for more water instead of food.

He pulled out a chair and sat and watched Jared grill some cheese sandwiches. Jared settled opposite him the way they had done dozens of times and ate two and a half sandwiches without pausing. He pushed the last half over, and Jensen nibbled the edges cautiously.

"So," Jared said, "tell me the hole in the wall isn't still under that painting."

Jensen felt a surge of anger that his workmanship could be called into question. Maybe he wasn't so over it. "I fixed it," he said curtly.

"Yeah, sorry, I figured."

"You tell anyone else you're here?" Jensen said, suddenly imagining reporters and cameras in the driveway.

"Just my family. I haven't even called anyone, I wanted to see you first, well, the dogs too, but mostly you." Jared's dimples flashed again, and he toyed with his glass. "Can I—I guess I just want to tell you what happened, what I did."

Jensen leaned back in his chair, not sure, now that the moment was upon him, that he wanted to hear it. Perhaps he needed to.

"I've never told anyone before, not all at once."

Perhaps Jared needed to tell him, and if Jensen couldn't give him that, then he needed to get up and leave now—leave and not come back. Kitchen tables were the traditional place for confessions. "Tell me," Jensen said softly.

"Okay." Jared shifted in his seat, looked up finally and smiled a little ruefully. "The network called my parents—made some threats about breach of contract."

"Assholes," Jensen said.

Jared shrugged; it wasn't anything new. The network had tried to run their lives for five years, after all. "My dad found a lawyer—a real hard ass. He sent them a letter telling them to pound salt, only in legalese. Got me thinking though, about you and Jeff and Misha having to cover for me—again. Made me want to come here, come home more than I ever had, so..."

Jared shifted in his seat. Nervous, he looked even more like his old self. "So, that night. I smashed up the car a bit. Too drunk, too crazy, to be driving. It was stupid. Totalled the thing, well it was all plastic and fibreglass anyway, as someone once told me."

Jensen smiled faintly at the memory. His gut churned again with the guilt that wasn't ever going to go away, that he'd let Jared drive away in that state.

"You couldn't have stopped me going," Jared said. "Not without somebody ending up dead." Jared glared at him, and Jensen shrugged, not ready to concede the point.

"Anyway," Jared said, "I hit a pole, not going fast, thankfully. Cut on my forehead was the worst of it." Jared scraped back his hair to reveal a jagged line over his right eye. "My own fault it looks as bad as it does, too stupid to get it stitched up. I just slapped a bandage on it and checked into a hotel.

"I had the car towed to a junkyard and just stayed in the hotel until I was finally sober. Wasn't much less crazy, though. I hopped a plane, did that whole cliché thing where you just take the next plane anywhere but here. Ended up in New Zealand, which don't ask me what it's like, because I don't remember any of it. I just sat in another damn hotel and drank the mini-bar dry.

"I don't even know how long I was there. I got paranoid that the press were after me, as if anybody gives a shit about some dumb TV actor, but that's where my head was at, so I hopped another plane. Ended up in Spain that time. Smartened up enough to call my momma at least. I never called anyone else, you know? No one else ever knew anything."

Jensen nodded. He'd known, believed most of the time, that Jared wasn't running away from just him.

"I found this place in Spain, a church retreat, if you can believe it. They left me alone, which was what I wanted. Didn't have to talk to anyone, slept whenever I wanted, ate when I wanted. I'm not sure how long I was there. I kind of lost the idea of time for a while, guess I was pretty depressed."

"Hey," Jensen said, needing to lighten the mood somehow, "you're an actor, dude. That's called suffering from exhaustion."

Jared grinned at him again, and Jensen was already hooked again on the rush he got making Jared smile like that. He'd never not been hooked on it.

"Well I was pretty exhausted, then," Jared said. "I sorted myself out enough to find someplace where maybe I could stop being so exhausted. I found this place in Rotterdam. No one had the first clue who I was, which was awesome, and it was okay. Tough at first, but I figured some shit out. Stayed there for a couple of months, but I got a hankering for some place hot, so I went and sat on a beach in Thailand for a while.

"It was getting to be the middle of August, so I figured if I wanted heat and humidity, I could just go see my folks."

"How did that go?" Jensen said, when Jared seemed to have lost the will to continue.

"Okay, sort of. I didn't want to go out anywhere, didn't want to see anybody, and they were all so worried all the time. I swear I could feel it coming off them in waves. It was getting to be too much. Food was good though." Jared lifted his head and flashed another grin, and Jensen found his own to answer it with.

"Jared," he said, "are you planning on going to L.A., doing this publicity stuff?"

"I want to try," he said softly.

"If you—you don't have to. You know that, right? I don't mind covering for you."

"Thought that was my job."

"So, maybe I owe you."

Jared shook his head. "Never. You never owe me. Just, can we—can you show me the rest of the house?"

Jensen took him upstairs, showed him the room he'd moved into. Told him why there was a new key for his own door. The cleaners had stripped Jared's bed, and Jensen let them in once a month to vacuum the clean carpet and dust the untouched furniture. The room was colourless, sterile looking, and Jared wrinkled his nose, and said, "I like your room better."

"Pick out a colour," Jensen said, without thinking about it, "and I'll paint it for you."

"Wait, what?" Jared said. "You did all this, actually did it yourself?"

Jensen felt a flush spreading. "Yeah, I mean it wasn't much, just some basic stuff. The tile in the kitchen was the hardest thing. I was going to put up some crown molding in the living room, but that's kind of a two-man job."

"Yeah? Is it hard?"

"Naw, just having another pair of hands is what you need, and someone tall helps."

"I know this guy..." Jared said and grinned again.

~~~~~

They spent a day in Vancouver, not talking about anything but dogs and Jensen's acting jobs, barely leaving the house. Jared admitted he'd not seen anything Jensen had done, and happily sat down to watch Jensen be a bad guy. He snorted when he saw the painting on screen. "You working for art now?"

"I'm all about the art, baby, you know that."

They booked a second plane ticket to L.A. and flew out the next morning. Jared was obviously paranoid about being recognized and as obviously embarrassed about his concern. Jensen hid under a hat and sunglasses and shook his head at the futility of it. Jared hadn't gotten any shorter after all, and only a little quieter.

Jensen snagged a cab at the airport and gave the driver the name of the hotel the network had booked for him. "I don't have a place here anymore. You can book another room if you want, but they put me in a double, so if you want to share and be incognito, you can."

"Two queens?" Jared asked with a smile.

"No way, man. Two kings. Nothing but the best."

In truth, the hotel was only mediocre, but Jensen checked himself in while Jared loitered, not very unobtrusively, and he did relax noticeably when they had the door closed behind them.

~~~~~

"You sure you want to come?" Jensen had asked, again, just before they left the hotel the next morning, and Jared had probably been justified in pitching the pillow at his head.

Jensen had a uniform for meeting with network guys. A careful blend of business and casual that looked professional, but still carried a hint of the taunt, that Jensen got to play dress up for a living while network guys were still just guys in suits. Jared had two pairs of jeans and three shirts that fit his new body properly. Everything in his closet in Vancouver had hung wrong on him. He'd stopped trying things on when he had a pile of clothes—"perfect for when we paint this room"—bigger than most people's entire wardrobes. He was wearing the same clingy grey shirt he'd had on the day he'd come home, and Jensen thought he looked smokin' hot standing there in the elevator and nervously chewing at his thumb nail as they headed up to their meeting.

He avoided asking Jared if he was okay, just, but he'd have needed to be blind not to see how nervous he was. "Jeff gonna be here?" Jared asked when the elevator was opening on their floor.

"Think so."

Jared nodded, and Jensen stepped out of the elevator and waited. Jared stepped up beside him and waited until the doors had slid closed behind him before he shook himself and achieved a semblance of casual ease.

"This way," Jensen said and grabbed Jared's wrist to tug him in the right direction.

Jared took two steps, shook Jensen's grip loose and then recaptured his hand in a palm to palm grip. They walked to the conference room, and Jared slowly uncurled back into the tall, straight, clear-eyed man who had gotten on the plane that morning. There were no dimples in sight.

Jensen stepped through the door first, towing Jared behind him. They made for a good conversation stopper, and bless Jeff's quick mind and quicker body, because he was up out of his chair and had his arms around Jared before anyone can speak. "Damn, kid," he said, stepping back, but not letting go. "You look damn good. Where the hell have you been?"

Jared had told him what he was going to say to that inevitable question, and this was his first chance to try it out. "Around. Europe, mostly."

"Europe, huh," Jeff said, giving him the look that said there'd be a few more details expected later. "In that case–" he slapped his palms to Jared's cheeks and the snap of skin on skin was loud in the room, echoing like a gunshot. He hauled Jared's face down and planted three kisses, right cheek, left cheek and then smack on the lips. He looked like he was playing a Russian mobster in a film his agent shouldn't have let him do.

Jared threw his head back and laughed, almost the old booming laugh of old, and clapped Jeff on the back with a blow that wasn't soft. "Missed you, pops," he said.

Jared had the floor, and he still knew how to work a room. He leaned right over to Misha and shook hands, and then he pulled out a pair of chairs at the end of the table, opposite Jameson and his entourage of assistants, and waited for Jensen to seat himself. He stood with one hand on the back of his chair, as if he wasn't sure he was going to sit, and looked over the opposition. "Mr. Jameson," he said, softly, politely—all Texas and sunshine. "You called my family. You talked to my mother on the phone." The words weren't an accusation, just a statement of plain fact, and Jensen had the urge to whistle some Clint Eastwood music.

"You were shirking your obligations, contractual obligations, Mr. Padalecki," Jameson said.

"That's true," Jared said evenly, "I was. My mother doesn't owe you anything, though, Mr. Jameson—not you, not your network. If we can all keep that in mind, we'll get along just fine."

Jameson gave a barely imperceptible nod, and Jared sat down. He didn't say much for the rest of the meeting, asked for clarification a few times, offered a few flat-voiced corrections of facts, but he didn't offer any opinions, or tell any funny stories, or give any of himself away at all.

Jensen watched him nodding along, agreeing to a schedule of interviews that was going to be more than he could ever want to do. Jared seemed almost bored by it all, uninterested. Jensen was afraid he was agreeing to this ordeal out of guilt. Well, Jensen had guilt of his own, but he wasn't going to agree to that much repentance. He set his hand on top of Jared's, not unaware that it was only the second time they'd touched. Jeff had had his hands all over Jared, and vice versa, but in the hours they'd spent together, constantly, since Jared had come back, they'd been keeping a bubble of space between them that seemed hard to push through.

"That's real nice and all," Jensen said when the two assistants in charge of scheduling had finished praising Jameson's plans, "but you need to find about three hours to cut out of day one, and two out of day two."

"Oh?" Jameson said, and smiled unpleasantly.

"Yeah, I'm not gonna kill myself for your DVD sales."

"Mr. Ackles–" Jameson said.

"Right, then," Jensen said and stood up. He headed for the door. "You can email me the reduced schedule," he said, and he felt Jared fall into step behind him. The move had more Sam and Dean in it than Jared and Jensen, but it was a start.

Jensen's phone was buzzing when they hit the parking lot. "Hey, assholes," Jeff said and laughed in his ear. "You booked so fast, we didn't get a chance to make plans. Tell me your hotel, I'll send a car around and we can have dinner."

"You'll send a car, will you?" Jared raised his eyebrows at that, and Jensen mouthed Jeff's name. "Okay, Mr. Movie star. Do we need to rent tuxes?"

"Private dining room, you heathens can come as you are."

Jensen called a cab, shoved the phone back in his jeans and made a face of profound distaste.

"What?" Jared said.

"I can't believe I'm going to say this, but, dude, we need to go buy you some clothes."

"Yeah."

"Now, that's the level of enthusiasm I would expect from me."

Jared flashed a sliver of a smile. "I really don't want to go out someplace and be seen. Recognized. I—I can't remember how to act."

"I never knew it was an act, man. Shit, okay, let me think if anyone owes me favours." Jensen dug the phone out again, scrolled through his contacts, hit on a name and grinned. "Jared, my friend," he said smugly, "how would you like a whole new wardrobe you don't have to pay for?"

His old modeling agent was happy to hook them up with a publicist who was thrilled to hook them up with a hot new boutique that would be just as thrilled to deck Jared out in some really hot clothes, that they never expected to see again, all for the low, low price of some free publicity. Jensen might even score a few things out of the deal. And people said Hollywood was run on cocaine.

They were sprawled out in the back room of the boutique, Jared was looking worn down from a lot of forced smiles, and Jensen was getting worried about him. He was afraid Jared was going to do another disappearing act if the next couple of days got to be too much.

"Honey, I hope you don't mind me asking, but"—Jared looked up slowly, smiled faintly at the woman, the girlfriend of one of the boutique owners—"I used to do some film work—hair, make-up. I could show you how to cover that scar up, if you want, good enough to fool the cameras anyway."

Jared's real smile came out for a moment, and Jensen worried a little less. "You'd do that?" Jared said.

"Sure, honey. I have some stuff right here."

~~~~~

Jeff sent a car for them, as promised. They rode in silence, crawling through some traffic and then whipping too fast around corners and over rough pavement. Jared kept his eyes on the side window and his hand wrapped around Jensen's wrist, thumb rubbing compulsively. Jensen let him. The irritation from the constant friction had become a comfort to them both.

Jeffrey and Misha were already there, a bottle of wine and two mostly empty glasses on the table. Jensen slapped backs, talked a little too loud, made big expansive gestures while he made jokes about Jeff's star status. The role of Jared Padalecki is now being played by Jensen Ackles. Jeff was grinning and Misha was laughing and Jared slipped into the corner of the plush leather banquette, a small smile curving his lips.

Jeff offered the wine, and Jensen watched Jared accept a glass, take a small sip and set the glass carefully outside flailing-arm range. Jensen didn't know what Jared had meant by a place in Rotterdam, and he hadn't asked.

Dinner was fantastic, and as soon as the plates were cleared and Jeff was passing around a bottle of expensive whiskey, Jared's fingers were around his wrist again. Jeff was deep in conversation with Misha about some place in Egypt they'd both been to, and Jared was spinning his empty whiskey glass in long fingers. Jensen reached out and brushed back the hair on Jared's forehead. He ran his finger over the ridge of the scar. Jared turned and frowned, but didn't say anything, just watched Jensen.

Jensen was aware, distantly, that Jeff and Misha had fallen quiet and were watching him. "Jared, I–"

"No," Jared said, squeezing Jensen's wrist almost painfully, "I told you, you could not have stopped me. I might have put you in the hospital if you'd tried."

"I know that, just–"

"Not in your hind brain?"

"I guess," Jensen said and let his hand drop.

"Should I be calling the car for you guys?" Jeff said, which sounded a lot like get a room to Jensen, but Jeff was still smiling.

"Yeah, in a bit," Jared said, "but I have to do something first." He dug his hand into his pocket and pulled out a cheap prepaid cell phone. He set it down on the table and stared at it.

Jensen poured himself another belt of whiskey, and got out his own phone. He scrolled through the numbers, found the one he wanted and pressed send at the same time as he knocked back the whiskey.

"Hey," he said when Chad answered, "you sober and as sane as you get?"

Jensen waited out the usual response and then said, "Got someone here who wants to say hey."

He passed the phone over, and Jared said a tentative hello. He had to wait out a much longer response before he said anything else.

Misha started a conversation about the play he'd been working on in New York, and they talked loudly enough to drown out some of Jared's apologies.

~~~~~

Jensen arranged a wake-up call for early the next day, and then he stood not really looking at the pile of pocket junk he'd dumped on the nightstand—his cell, keys he can't not carry around even when the house and car they fit is in another country, coins, mostly Canadian, half a pack of gum. Once upon a time, his pockets had held emergency cash, cigarettes and condoms. "Chad was a bit angry," he said, not turning around.

"Yeah," Jared answered. He was pacing, restless, staring out the window and then striding over to the television—wound up in a way unlike his old energetic enthusiasm that had kept everyone around him upbeat and happy. He snatched up the remote and fiddled with the television, flicking through to a music channel and dropping the remote back onto the bed. "You're not. Or you're just not saying anything—I can't tell."

Jensen poked at the pack of gum, and told himself a cigarette would not make this conversation any easier. He snapped his fingers a few times, a tic he'd picked up lately. "I don't know," he said and he turned around, looked at Jared. It would be logical to be angry. He'd certainly been livid when he'd kicked Jared's door in all those months ago. "I was." He felt like they were still sitting in Jared's living room, staring at each other across the coffee table, like they couldn't get any closer, and Jensen didn't know why.

"And now?"

"Now, I don't—it's all a jumble. I mean, it's not like I'm not happy to see you, but..."

"You weren't sure you ever would?"

"I was," Jensen said, and laughed, it was the sort of thing you told interviewers when they asked you if you thought your show was going to be canceled. "I was keeping my options open."

The music from the television changed to some soft jazz number, not quite elevator music, but it's near cousin. "Dance with me," Jared said.

"What?" Jensen snorted out a laugh. "You're crazy, Jay, I'm not going to dance with you in a crappy hotel room." Jensen heard his own words and flushed, because that place in Rotterdam could have been rehab, or a spa, or something else entirely.

Jared tilted his head and smirked. "You're allowed to call me crazy, Jensen. I am a bit, and it's my intention to stay that way."

"Okay, but I'm still not dancing with you."

"Why not? There's no one here to see, no one to judge, no one to ask any damn questions. Come on, stop thinking with your head for a minute, think with your body. You'd be surprised what it can tell you."

Okay, so new-age retreat was also a possibility. Jensen glared at Jared, and Jared tilted his chin up and didn't say, "I dare you."

"Fine," Jensen said, and stalked over, right up to Jared, almost but not quite touching, and he hesitated.

He set his palms on Jared's chest, and he could feel the heat of Jared's body through the tight, knit shirt. He pushed his palms up and around, fingers tangling into the hair that tumbled over Jared's collar.

"Close your eyes," Jared said, and only when Jensen complied, did he wind his arms around Jensen's waist.

It wasn't dancing, exactly. They did a sort of shuffle-sway, and Jensen ignored the music, preferring to concentrate on the feel of Jared's body against his, the scent of him, the size of him, despite the amount he'd diminished. And that was another thing Jensen had never asked about. He'd never looked too closely at how Jared bulked up, and how he had changed in other ways over the years.

"You quit smoking completely," Jared said.

"Again."

"Could be forever, don't sell yourself short."

"You quit doing a few things too," Jensen said, and why it came out like an accusation, he had no idea.

"Yeah. A few. I was drinking too much. Other things."

"You look more beautiful than you even did."

Jared laughed, buried his head in Jensen's neck. "Don't think I've ever been beautiful. Not like you."

"Why?"

Jared pulled away, and Jensen opened his eyes, the shabby hotel a shock. He'd been somewhere else just then, while they sort of danced.

"We're not talking about my looks anymore are we?"

Jensen stepped back so he could see Jared properly. "Why did you stay away? I could have helped you, could have been there."

Jared rubbed his hands over his face, and this was probably only one of the things Chad had demanded and Jared had apologized for. "I know you could have carried me Jen, I know that. I just didn't want to be the monkey on your back. I'm sorry I hurt you, but I'm not sorry I left, or that I stayed gone."

Jensen frowned, shook his head. Maybe it wasn't his call, but that didn't seem right, didn't seem like the way it should be. "You sorry you came back?"

"Hell, no," Jared said, and he laughed, big and loud. "I missed your pissy little scowl like you wouldn't believe."

"Yeah?" Jensen said, and he tried to keep the scowl off his face and the twitch out of his lips both. "Miss anything else?"

"Well, the dogs, of course."

"Asshole."

Jared grinned at him, took a step closer and then paused again, tilted his head. He done that a lot since he'd come home, thought about what he was going to do, didn't just reach out and grab and take and get carried away and carry everyone along with him. "Take me to bed, Jensen," he said softly.

Jensen raised his brows.

"Let your body do what it wants."

Jensen thought that sounded perilously close to an offer of some kind of sacrifice, physical atonement. Just what was Jared offering to let him do? And just what did Jensen want to do? He still felt numb, didn't know which way to jump.

Jared turned, peeled off his shirt and quickly stripped out of the rest of his clothes, and Jensen had his direction. "Get on the bed," he said, husky-voiced command startling in his own ears, but not to Jared, because he just glanced over his shoulder and smiled before he lay down on the nearest bed, face down, head pillowed on his bent arms. Jensen stood beside the bed studying Jared, his body, the play of light on his skin, the new shape of him. He shucked his own clothes quickly and crawled up to kneel beside Jared. He touched one finger to Jared's back, right between his shoulder blades, and he closed his eyes and ran the finger down slowly. He thought he could feel a change in the texture of the skin, but he wasn't sure it wasn't all in his own mind. "So by place in Rotterdam, you actually meant tattoo parlour?" he said, and Jared snorted a laugh at him.

"I got that done in Thailand," Jared said, while Jensen traced the outline of the bird and the flames. It was large, curving from Jared's right shoulder to the small of his back, and it was beautiful, in and of itself, with it's intricate feathers that segued seamlessly into flames in vibrant, blue and green as well as red and orange and yellow. The fact that it was part of Jared's body made it something other than merely beautiful. "I found a picture on-line, but the guy, well, he was an artist, and he took the idea and made his own design. He said it had to fit on the body and the person both."

"It's spectacular." Jensen stopped resisting and bent to taste the red and blue and green flames.

Jared melted under his tongue; his voice dropped to barely a whisper. "Hurt like hell, but it was worth it."

"Yeah," Jensen said softly, and he started a little when his cock brushed against Jared's ass. He spared a moment to palm the curves, squeezing and trailing his fingers into the cleft. He was entranced still with the bird, and he figured other things could wait a little longer, so he went back to his careful tracing, the thought coming to him suddenly that maybe Jared didn't really appreciate this kind of attention. "You don't mind do you?" he said.

"Hate it, Jen. Hate the way you touch me, the way you can't keep your hands off me," Jared said, and then his voice changed, deepened and he said, "Do whatever you want."

Jensen had that feeling again that Jared was offering himself up for punishment, if Jensen needed to hand it out, and he found the feeling more than a little unsettling. He didn't know how to explain, how to make himself clear, because he wasn't clear in his own mind, but he did know that having Jared back was trumping everything else he was feeling. "I have to stop touching this, or I won't stop, if that makes any sense," Jensen said.

"No such words as have to."

"Tell me that the next time you need to piss."

Jared made an inarticulate growl and wriggled around under Jensen and flipped over on to his back, bringing Jensen crashing down on top of him. Jared was grinning at him, and Jensen had to taste that grin. He started with a brush of lips and then a swipe of tongue and lips again. He pressed and Jared opened, and they kissed long and deep and slow.

Jensen could see the bird whenever he closed his eyes, and he was maybe fixated, but he found himself not caring. He tugged on Jared's arm and rolled them until they were on their sides. He could run his hand down the sweep of Jared's back, ghosting his palm over the bird and down over the curve of ass, while they kissed. The tickle of chest hair against his erect and sensitive nipples finally broke the spell of the bird, and he pushed Jared back over and rose up on his elbow to look. The hair was sparse, coarse and deep black. It drew the eye to nipples and to the shape of the body and, inevitably down the tapering trail, to Jared's erection.

"I like it," Jensen said, and drew his fingers through the crinkly hairs, combing them flat as he followed the trail.

"I'm a natural man, baby," Jared said and laughed at his own joke.

Jensen risked encouraging him and let his own smile stretch wide. His hand was continuing it's explorations, flirting with Jared's cock, before moving lower. He still wanted the bird, wanted to touch and taste. Okay, yes, he was fixated.

The bird was Jared, he told himself so he gripped Jared's cock firmly and bent to taste, swirling his tongue and losing himself in the familiar actions, breathing through his nose in a careful rhythm and licking and bobbing his head and sucking and pausing to swirl his tongue again, stroking with his hand; it was hypnotic, and the world went away when he did this. He kept his eyes closed, let his mind feast on the image of the bird that was burned into his memory now, permanently.

Jared writhed quietly beneath him, too quietly, like he was holding himself back, and Jensen would have to figure that out, figure out how to get him to let go, but now Jared was clenching and flailing with one hand in warning, and Jensen pulled back, let his hand whip over Jared's spit-slick cock, not because he didn't like to swallow, but because he really liked to watch. He watched the spurts of come cover his own hand and Jared's skin and he knew what he wanted, knew what he so very desperately wanted to do.

He looked up to find Jared watching him, smiling knowingly. "I meant it," Jared said, "whatever your body wants."

"I think this is what my head wants, but"—Jensen took a deep breath, ran his hands through the mess on Jared's belly and used it to slick himself—"roll over."

Jared turned onto his belly, and Jensen positioned himself over Jared, shoving his legs apart a bit. Jensen had never done this, but he had a grasp on the theory. He eased himself down, slipping his cock along the crack of Jared's ass, supporting most of his weight on his arms. He thrust up a few times, dropped back down, made a few jokes inside his own head about X-rated push-ups and said, "Press your legs together."

Jared did as he was bid without question, and Jensen concentrated on fucking into the tight firm space, and occasionally bending to kiss the flames and feathers shining slick with Jared's sweat. He was a little surprised to hear Jared start to make little noises of pleasure.

"It's," Jared said, "I don't know"—Jensen sank down a little farther—"Oh, god, that's good."

Jensen fucked down a little harder and deeper, and Jared was quivering under him, pressing his legs together more tightly, and moaning encouragement.

With a little more lube and Jared's erection trapped against the bed—silk sheets, they needed silk sheets—this could be something other than just a means to an end. He was getting there, getting close, and he worked himself ruthlessly hard, the head of his cock scraping over Jared's balls and perineum, until he was close enough. He pulled out and scrambled up, and he finished himself with almost violent strokes of his hand, and a sound like pain ripped out of his throat as he painted over the bird with his come. He held his still twitching cock in one hand and used the other to smear the sticky mess around, rubbing it into Jared's skin, until the glory of the bird was revealed again.

He collapsed onto the bed beside Jared, wanting to ask if he could take a picture of the bird, of Jared, but he thought that might be going too far. "I think I'm a little fixated," he said.

Jared just laughed at him and said, "You're scrubbing my back in the shower."

~~~~~

Two days of press interviews and television appearances were a bigger ordeal than most of the worst days of filming the damn show had ever been. The days of their old routine were gone forever; Jensen had known that almost the minute they got on the plane to L.A. and Jared had started to close in on himself into a wary stillness he'd never shown before. Jensen had to work hard to learn the new lines, turn up the volume on his own persona and direct the conversation onto safe ground. He made sure Jared sat between him and the interviewer, and he learned how to turn and lean in so that Jared was centre stage but the focus was all on Jensen. Jared learned how to seem relaxed and interested and always answered direct questions with the most indirect of answers.

They spent the two nights in their hotel bed, Jensen curled up against Jared's back, lips or hand or both pressed tight to the bird.

"You still have your camera, right?" Jared said.

"Um," Jensen said, and he bent his forehead to Jared's neck, "you would let me?"

"Of course."

"Okay."

"I draw the line at mirrors over the bed," Jared said and pulled Jensen's arm around his waist.

~~~~~

Jared unpacked his suitcase into Jensen's closet. He slept in Jensen's bed. The second nightstand started to accumulate things, a phone, a stack of books and magazines, the occasional dog toy, and at about the same pace, Jared unwound from the uncomfortable stiffness he'd worn in L.A. like armour.

Jensen bought silk sheets in a dark blue. Jared walked into the bedroom one bright morning, saw the sheets on the bed and smiled wide and happy. He stripped naked in an eye blink and sprawled face-down. "Get your camera," he said, "because this is your only chance before these sheets get good and messy."

Jared had fallen into the habit of sitting in the middle of the dogs' sofa with the painting behind him. He looked right to Jensen sitting there with the swirls of colour behind him, and Jensen took almost as many pictures of him there, slouched down with the dogs or reading intently, books, never a script, as he did in their bed, naked against dark silk.

Jared started running in the middle of the morning, claiming it wasn't a desire to sleep in, but rather a desire for warmer temperatures that drove the change. Jensen opened his mouth to counter with dire tales of the hot summer just past, but he couldn't get the words out. He'd come home from filming every day during that summer, exhausted and elated and sometimes feeling inadequate, and there had been nothing there in the empty house, no one to taste his elation or fill him back up with energy and confidence, no one to distract him with their own needs and joys. Instead, Jensen asked about the construction on the next street over, and Jared claimed one of the guys on the site had whistled at him when he'd run by.

A couple of days later Jensen found Jared in the bathroom, holding his hair back off his face and staring at his reflection. Jensen almost turned and walked away, talking about the scar was as impossible as talking about the time Jared had been gone. No matter how many times Jared told him it wasn't his fault, he knew full well all the questions he hadn't asked and the things he'd deliberately not noticed, and the number of times he'd gone into his own room and closed the door to the rest of the house.

"What are you doing?" Jensen said, because Jared had seen him, and he couldn't just walk away.

"Trying to decide if I should cut my hair off."

"Really?" Jensen pushed around Jared and hopped up onto the vanity, wanting a better view.

"Yeah, I'm trying to decide if I'll look like a total dork or not. I wanted to cut it all off ages ago, but–"

"You have that enormous forehead, and–"

Jared slapped at Jensen's head with all the force of a wet noodle. "Momma sent me an email about a plastic surgeon in Vancouver," he said.

Jensen took a deep breath, let it out.

"You don't like talking about it."

"Depends on what you mean by it," Jensen said and kept his eyes on his fascinating thumbnail.

"The scar, where it came from, everything that came before. It's like the world started on the day I came home."

"Well," Jensen said ruefully, "in that case, I'm going to have to agree with you. I don't like talking about any of it. Do you want to see a plastic surgeon?" Talking about the scar in the future tense might just be doable.

"No."

"You planning on acting ever again?" Jensen renewed his interest in his thumbnail. It had occurred to him that he could hardly claim to have learned anything from his mistakes, the things that made him feel so damn guilty, if he was going to stick to not asking any questions.

"I don't know, and obviously, I would almost have to do something about it if I was—so, I'm not sure."

"Hair grows," Jensen said, because the haircut issue was a little easier to solve.

"You'd see it all the time if I cut my hair."

"I see it all the time anyway, even when it's covered," Jensen said, giving up on his thumbnail and meeting Jared's gaze.

"We still talking about the scar?"

Jensen smiled, licked his lips, shook his head.

Jared shook his head and said sadly, "You are a man with an obsession, Jensen." He leaned in and kissed Jensen softly and slowly, and Jensen slid his hands up under the back of Jared's shirt, and their kissing was not so soft and slow any more. "What do you want, Jen?" Jared said against the side of his head, breath tickling his ear.

"Why don't you drive this time."

"We going somewhere?"

"I know it's old-fashioned, but I've never been much of a bathroom sex kind of guy, but I said you should drive, so whatever you want." Jensen tilted his head to give Jared access to the side of his neck. Jensen needed to get the hell off the vanity before he fell off, Jared had all his nerves firing, and he'd barely touched him.

"Jumpy today," Jared said. "Maybe I should get you in the bed where I can hold you down?"

"Fuck," Jensen said, and a wave of goosebumps popped up all down his body.

"Yeah," Jared said, hot breath licking against his neck. "Let's do that." Jared pulled, and Jensen slid off the counter, and then he was being towed into the bedroom. Jared let him go and nodded to the bed. "Naked, on your back."

Jensen shucked his clothes and scrambled onto the bed. Jared had wandered off to rummage in a closet, and Jensen was not particularly surprised when he came back with a fist-full of neckties.

"The biggest cliché, I know," Jared said. "Can I?"

Jensen's mouth was dry and his voice rasped when he answered, "What do you have in mind?"

"The worst torture you can imagine," Jared said with a huge grin. "I'm going to tie your arms down and see if you can come without getting your hands on my back. I might even leave my shirt on."

Jensen felt a flush of embarrassment flash hot in his face. He had, hadn't he, managed that feat? There had been a few times in bed in the dark, but his hands had definitely done some wandering. There was the one time on the couch during a really boring football game, but he'd made Jared take his shirt off, and—he flopped his hands loosely over his head in surrender, and Jared laughed at him and clambered onto the bed with an exuberance that was more daunting than some cool, sexy Dom act would have ever been. Jared with the bit in his teeth was what he'd been after, and now that he had it, he was just going to have to hang on for the ride.

Jared tied him ridiculously loosely and rolled off the bed to get undressed. He stood, looking down at Jensen, head tilted, finger tapping against his lips in some campy routine that should have been funny, and it was, Jensen was grinning at him, but it was also making him squirm with anticipation.

"I think a clear statement of intent is in order," Jared said, and he started ransacking the nightstands and the dresser drawers. "Ah, ha!" he said and brandished a small zippered bag, the sort of thing you'd use as a shaving kit. Jared laid it out on the bed, leaving the drawers open, various things trailing onto the floor, and opened it up.

Jensen tried to see inside, but all he got was a vague impression of colours, bright artificial hues like plastic or, shit, silicone. Jared grinned at him, palming something in his big hand and crawling up the bed. Jensen wasn't proud, he spread his legs nice and wide to give Jared a clear path.

Jared smiled at him, sweetly and softly, so Jensen was ready when he got hit with the cold squirt of lube in a very sensitive place. He still flinched, and Jared laughed at him again, so he kicked him in the head. Jared caught his ankle in one hand and held on tight enough to bruise while he worked Jensen open with his slick fingers. Jensen decided to give in to temptation right away, in case Jared decided to tie his legs down too. He hooked his free leg around and trailed his toes down Jared's back.

"Oh that is _it_," Jared said, and something, whatever Jared had palmed was pressing at his hole, and Jensen had to concentrate on taking it. He dropped his leg back to the bed. Whatever it was slid inside slow and slick, stretching him wider and wider, and he was thrashing and whimpering even, and Jared had this frown of concentration on his face. Jensen was at his disposal, his to do with as Jared's imagination saw fit. Jensen groaned as the plug, it had to be, but a big one, sank home.

Jared casually wiped his hand on the sheets and sat back and watched Jensen trying to get comfortable. Just the moment that Jensen finally relaxed a little, got a little used to the feeling, Jared twisted the base of the plug a little and pressed in, and Jensen was writhing and cursing his name and so very blissfully hard. Jared left the plug alone for a while and trailed fingers, too light a touch to be anything but a tease, up Jensen's perineum to tickle at his balls and then down over the skin of his thighs.

What followed was the most glorious, exquisite, teasing torture he'd ever endured. Jared used his tongue and his teeth and his fingers, and Jensen was aching hard and desperate to come, and he wanted this to go on forever and never stop, and he needed to come right now, right the fuck now. Jared paused in his licking and sucking of Jensen's balls to laugh. "Not until I say so, Jensen," he said, and only then did Jensen realize he'd been screaming all that out loud.

"Just please, please, at least touch me, please," he said, and Jared laughed again and trailed those little dancing fingers everywhere at once.

"I am touching you, Jensen, I have been."

"Not my cock, you evil fucking asshole."

"Oh, no, well that would be rushing things," Jared said and bent his head to use his tongue for other sorts of taunting.

"Please, Jared, please, please." And could he sound any more pathetic?

"Oh, fine," Jared said in mock huffiness, and he opened his evil mouth and surrounded Jensen in perfect, perfect wet heat and he sucked once, hard and exactly right, and then the inhuman bastard stopped. He sat back and grinned while Jensen tossed his head in incoherent, thwarted, needy rage.

"It's not the bird," Jensen shouted, "it's not, it's you, you jerk—it's just you."

Jared moved at some sort of supersonic speed, or Jensen blacked out from need or something, because the next instant Jared was pressing in where the plug had been, and they were fucking hard and desperate, and no one was running the fuck anywhere ever the fuck again or closing doors or fucking not asking fucking questions.

Jensen, untied and draped half over Jared's still-heaving chest, reflected that he had likely yelled that out loud too.

~~~~~

"Jen," Jared said one day while they were foraging for breakfast, "do you like this floor?"

"'S ugly," Jensen said around a mouthful of toast.

"So how hard would it be to replace it?"

"Not too hard, not much more difficult that the back splash was. You know what the best part is, though? You have to smash up the old tile with a sledge hammer. Saw it on a show once."

"Really?" Jared grinned, and Jensen grinned back, because a sledge hammer, who could resist that?


End file.
